GASTON COUNTY, N.C.,None — Heavy winds and hail can overhaul the tops of houses and other buildings in a heartbeat.
And a surplus of old shingles from storm-damaged homes in the area this year is sending business at the Gaston County Landfill through the roof.
"Construction demolition has really picked up out here in the last month or so," said landfill supervisor Barry Cloninger, referring to the types of materials being brought to the dumping ground. "Shingles are the biggest part of that."
In a normal month, the landfill gets 500 to 700 tons of shingles. When thunderstorms began wreaking havoc on the area in April, the facility took in 1,200 tons of shingles, followed by 5,900 tons in May.
The tipping fees people, companies and municipalities must pay to toss their garbage produce extra revenue for Gaston County during such periods of high demand. But officials say that will largely be offset by the reduced capacity to handle refuse in the future.
The Gaston County Landfill is located on Philadelphia Church Road, north of Dallas and near High Shoals. It was developed in 1987 on 365 acres, although the entire tract couldn't be permitted as a landfill because parts of it weren't fit for that use, Cloninger said.
"I'd say we probably have 15 or 20 years left to use this one," he said. "Expected life is a hard question to answer, because if tonnage goes up, life goes down."
Shingle spurt
The Gaston landfill charges $26.50 a ton to accept construction and demolition materials, which includes things such as sheet rock, insulation, boards, framing, bricks, ceiling tile, flooring and plywood. But because contractors often end up replacing an entire roof when a home is damaged by hail or wind, shingles have been the hottest commodity this year.
Fiberglass-based, asphalt shingles are the most common roofing material used on homes in the United States. They're heavy, so the tonnage adds up quickly and hits contractors in the wallet.
"You can get three to four tons of shingles on one of those double-axle trailers you pull behind a 3/4-ton pickup truck," Cloninger said.
To keep up with the higher volume, Cloninger has shifted another equipment operator and a bulldozer to spread the abundance of shingles in one section of the landfill.
"We just try to use good compaction and break it up," he said. "We can adjust the way we need to if we get a lot of stuff coming in. It's one of those things we've got to do."
Leaves, branches and trunks from trees felled by this year's storms have also been turning up in heavier supply. The tipping fee for such yard waste is $20 per ton. And that's made for an expensive season for cities such as Belmont, which suffered another heavy blow from storms Sunday.
Like many cities of its size, Belmont doesn't have its own equipment to grind up yard waste. It budgeted $25,000 this year for Gaston County Landfill tipping fees. But public works director David Isenhour said the city's expenses will probably exceed $40,000, due to another 60 to 70 tons of yard waste produced Sunday.
"With these last five storms we've had, there's just no way to budget for that," he said. "It's a costly endeavor."
Gaston County may seem to be coming out on top with the higher revenue from tipping fees. But it's only causing county leaders to have to think more about planning for the future.
"There's a cost associated with using up the useful life of the landfill," said County Manager Jan Winters.
Landfills must be out of the floodplain, 300 feet away from other property lines and 300 feet away from roads, among countless other requirements. Cloninger said they are exploring options for recycling shingles received at the local facility, though they haven't found a market for doing that yet.
Winters said recycling is being given a priority.
"At some point sooner than we would like, we'll have to look for another site and deal with all the associated expenses of building and permitting a new landfill," he said. "Anything we can do to extend the life of the one we've got, we need to do."
WSOC
